More than 1,000 servicemen turn out for prep football game in 1943

Compiled by Don Hoiness from archived copies of The Bulletin at Deschutes County Historical Society.

100 Years ago

For the week ending

Sept. 22, 1918

Kaiser planned to rule world after six months warfare

Planning world trade domination, if not actual world rule, as the outcome of a short six-month campaign in Europe, Germany now finds herself outcast from among civilized nations, her people impoverished, her honor irrevocably stained by the blood of Belgium, and facing a future of fathomless ignominy and disgrace.

“I will make room for my growing people by taking some more of France and a few thousand square miles of Russia,” said the Kaiser. “We will get the iron and coal in Northern France for manufactures which we will sell the conquered population of Russia, and this, besides indemnities, will more than pay for the war. England will not dare come in, and our merchant fleets will soon crowd her from the world trade routes.

“If the United States does not acquiesce, her manufacturers will get no more of out dyes and chemicals, her farmers no more of out fertilizers. And we will also take away from her all South America commerce.”

Weight rests on American farmer

Upon no one class rests a greater responsibility than upon the American farmer, who with his wives and sons and daughters constitutes one-third of our population. He has the first and great responsibility of providing food for the nation at home, food for the fighting men abroad and food for our allies in the battle line and their civilian population.

England, with millions of acres of parks and hunting grounds converted into farms can only raise crops to feed her people half the year. France, with every man in uniform, and nearly half her fields overrun by armies, does even less.

With her grain fields extended by millions of acres of new land, America is responding to the call and allied hunger will never be an ally to Germany.

Billions of dollars of America’s huge war loans are coming back to the farmer in payment for his grain and stock.

The farmer, for his future honor and standing in the nation, must see that every penny of this sum he can spare reinvested in war loans. The Fourth Liberty Loan, now upon us, calls for but a portion of what America must spend in war efforts in the next few months. It must be subscribed promptly and overwhelmingly. That “the man who is not for us is against us” is as true now as when it was written centuries ago.

If YOU buy a fifty dollar bond when you COULD BUY a five hundred dollar bond, you are not doing your full duty as an American.

75 Years ago

For the week ending

Sept. 22, 1943

Battle line in big maneuver takes shape on High Desert

Fourth Corps Headquarters, Oregon Maneuver Area — It becomes apparent today that the battle line in the fourth army corps maneuver was forming along a north and south line just west of Brothers, 40 miles east of Bend, as combat units were feeling out the strength of the opposition and commanding generals were ordering up their heaviest firepower.

Observation, pursuit and bombing aircraft were strafing as long columns of soldiers and equipment moves to the front with their heavies. Artillery, anti-aircraft, machine guns mounted on trucks and jeeps fought back the strafers.

The United Press correspondent saw both sides of the front across a no-man’s-land of rolling desert, sagebrush and dust — hot by day but very cold at night owing to the thin air of 5,000-feet altitude.

Desert battle front changes

Red forces commanding General Gilbert R. Cook today ordered a withdrawal from the Brothers front and reestablished his battle line 15 miles farther east along a natural defense formed by Glass Butte and Hampton mountains in the Central Oregon maneuver area.

Soldiers prove real grid fans

Servicemen by the hundreds, many of whom who probably played high school or college football in other years on gridirons all over the country, turned out last night for the opening game between Bend and Maupin high schools.

Bend fans were far outnumbered by the khaki-clads. Of an audience estimated at over 1,500, it is believed that more than 1,000 were servicemen.

The soldiers proved to be the most enthusiastic fans ever seated at Bruin Field. Hardly had the game started but they were organizing into groups and giving vent to songs and cheers for the underdog Maupin team.

At halftime several hundred of them thronged out onto the field, got their hands on several footballs and staged an impromptu show of passing, running and tackling.

Last night’s game was a soldier show throughout. Several dozen military police were on the grounds to keep perfect order. Smoking was prohibited in south grandstand because of the proximity of a gasoline depot and military police enforced the order.

The turnout last night forecast record-breaking crowds for Central Oregon football games this year and it s believed the enthusiasm of the soldiers will help to revive civilian interest, which has lagged here since the championship year of 1940.

Servicemen were admitted to the game at student rates.

50 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

Sept. 22, 1968

Super-speed highways may be with us by 2000 (editorial)

Would you believe a 100-mile-an-hour highway where you would get a ticket for obstructing traffic if you slow-poked along at less than 90?

And that such a highway has been proposed by one of the nation’s leading auto safety research laboratories.

It’s true. Cornell Aeronautical Laboratories, whose traffic safety research has spearheaded much of the drive toward safer cars, says such highways could be commonplace by the year 2000, which is only 32 years away.

CAL actually has developed several concepts of this proposed “Century Expressway” and has recommended that a 100-mile stretch of it be designed and built to serve as a proving ground for high speed auto travel.

Before a motorist would be allowed to enter a “Century Expressway” his car would be required to pass an inspection of tires, brakes, steering, communication and signal equipment. If his car failed to pass, provisions could be made to have cars to rent for the high speed trip.

There’s also to be a health inspection. Drivers not competent for any reason, such as being too tired, ill or under the influence of liquor, would not be allowed on the highway.

After both car and driver passed the tests, the motorist would be directed to a special merge-control system consisting of a long entrance ramp with control lights.

A computerized surveillance system would detect a gap in the high speed traffic flow some distance back from the merge point of the entrance ramp. The driver would be signaled to start accelerating along the ramp so that he would arrive at the entrance to the “Century Expressway” at the same time that the gap in traffic arrived, and he would then mesh in smoothly, traveling at 100 miles an hour.

If for some reason, the entering car arrived at the wrong time and there was no gap to fit into, automatic signals would direct the driver into a safety abort lane.

Some drivers appear to be under the impression that the 100-mile-per-hour freeways are already with us. However, there is still much work to be done before super speed highways can be proved feasible and safe.

Re-entry unsure for Soviet shot

The Soviets’ Zond 5 barreled toward earth at 25,000 miles an hour today, headed for a touchy re-entry into the atmosphere that if successful will make it the first spacecraft around the moon and back.

The Soviet news agency Tass announced Zond 5 had circled the moon Wednesday and was proceeding normally.

The shot was an apparent Soviet attempt to go one up on the United States in the race for the moon, paving the way for a man to follow Zond 5’s pioneering footsteps. The United States plans to send three men around the moon late in December.

25 YEARS AGO

For the week ending

Sept. 22, 1993

Peaches sighted in Bend

More astounding than an Elvis sighting is the vision of fruit-laden peach trees in Central Oregon.

Believe it or not, both can be found in the quiet Rock Arbor Villa mobile home park. There Elvis King has canned a dozen pints of peaches from trees in his back yard and expects to can dozens more before the season is over.

While Elvis sightings are rare, peaches grown in the High Desert are even rarer.

This is the first time King’s trees have borne fruit since they were planted in 1980.

After canning peaches that fall he and his wife buried the leftover seeds and peelings. Four trees sprung up around their home.

More than a decade later, King is finally able to harvest the fruits of that labor.

King’s trees are so laden with fruit that their branches must be propped up with planks, lest they break.

To guests visiting his home, King handed out bags of peaches and the 29-cent version of the Elvis Presley postage stamp. With a name like his, King acknowledged, the stamp is a natural calling card.

With a fruit crop like his, so are the peaches. The bounty of his crop so overwhelmed him that King gave one of the trees to a neighbor.

Still, he plans to continue his tradition of burying the seeds and peels leftover from canning.

“I told my daughter I was canning, and that I would take those peels and seeds out and bury them. She said, ‘Dad, you don’t need any more trees!’” he said.

Region gets another quake. Wake-up call

First an earthquake rocks the northern Willamette Valley. Six-months later, an even more severe earthquake hits the Klamath Falls area.

Is Central Oregon next?

Not likely, say most geologists familiar with the area.

The two quakes occurred on two separate and unrelated faults, geologists say, and are more likely a coincidence than anything else.

Other scientists familiar with the region, however, warn that the two earthquakes should signal a “wake-up” call for Central Oregon.

“In the past we would have automatically said these two earthquakes were completely unrelated,” said Lanny Fisk, a Bend geological consultant. “But we are now theorizing that if you put stress on one area and there’s movement, that stress has to be dissipated over a distance, which leads to adjustments on other faults that are typically very close.”

Even if an earthquake the same size as the Klamath quake hit Central Oregon, Fisk said, damage would not be as severe thanks to the region’s dry soil. Fisk said the wetter the soil is — a term known as liquification, which he compares to a gelatin mold — the more the quake will shake an area.

“It would be more like a quick jolt, and the Jell-o effect would not be as severe,” he said. “In Central Oregon when you bump the Jell-o mold it’s going to shake once and it’s over. In Klamath Falls and Portland it’s going to keep shaking for awhile.”

Fisk said that the two earthquakes do not mean that people in Central Oregon should start getting ready for “the big one.” But he said that they should be aware that the possibility of a major Central Oregon earthquake does exist.